How to use the Movies for Business™ Program

Movies for Business™ uses popular films to teach business lessons in leadership, finance, team-building, succession, marketing and other key performance areas.

Popular films on videotape or DVD are a ready source of management training material. Our program can be used for self-study or as part of one-on-one corporate training programs. You can purchase our Study Guides online or buy one of our two collections from our online bookstore or from amazon.com. Movies featured in our guides have been culled from a list of more than 300 movies reviewed by the authors. New Study Guides are offered on a regular basis.

How We Choose the Movies

The selection of movies used in the program is based on five criteria:

Availability. If you can’t readily find a selected film on Blu-Ray, DVD, VHS or as a digital download, chances are you won’t be interested in studying it.

Quality of Business Lessons. The selections provide multiple discussion points centered on multiple scenes in the movie. They cover virtually all areas and topics related to modern business practice – and the lessons are applicable to businesses of all sizes.

Suitability for workplace application. With noted exceptions, the movies selected are appropriate to recommend to colleagues or employees without fear of giving litigatory offense – a real issue in today’s increasing politically-correct workplace. Ten of the movies – more than one-third – carry ratings of G or PG (or were released before the rating system came along, but would clearly fall within the G/PG range). Most of the other films are rated PG-13, and none carries a rating higher than R. The authors list specific cautioning for readers about extreme scenes of violence (Godfather series, Bugsy); adult situations (Bugsy, Wall Street); language (Glengarry Glen Ross); and possible issues of racial/ethnic/lifestyle slurs (Glengarry Glen Ross and Zulu) at the beginning of each Guide.

Real Business vs. “Reel” Business

Shaun O’L. Higgins, Colleen Striegel and other contributing writers approach their subject with wit and humor, noting throughout their guides the differences between reel business and real business.

Each Study Guide section opens with an introductory paragraph that helps readers imagine themselves in management situations that emulate those presented in that Guide’s film(s). In the case of movies about business, this is a matter of simply encapsulating the underlying issues. In the case of non-business movies such as Hoosiers and Zulu, the opening sections provide a bridge between the world of the film and similar situations in business.

Our study guides assume that readers have viewed or will actually view the movie. Rather than using detailed movie summaries, the authors’ commentary usually refers only to the specific scenes relevant to the business or management principle being stressed. Guides are not always “spoiler” free, so watching the movie before referring to the guides is recommended.

Each Movie gets Three Ratings

Given the reasonable assumption that managers attracted to the program will have an above-average interest in movies, each movie “pony” features an abbreviated list of movie credits; and some Guides feature anecdotal information about a film. Each movie is also given three ratings: the MPPA Audience Rating (such as PG), the authors’ entertainment value rating (ranging from 1 to 5 attaché cases), and the authors’ Business Value Rating (BVR), indicating the type and level of manager for whom it will have most value. A BVR of M5, for example, indicates the movie is particularly valuable for senior marketing executives.

Designed for Random Access: Short Takes and Breakout Boxes

Most guides are 4,500 to 6,000 words in length, but written in short takes, maximizing random access. The user may enter each Guide at any main-text division, without having to refer back to previous sections. Main-text sections range from 300 to 500 words in length. Charts and breakout boxes (sidebars) are also used to add graphic impact and further randomize the access process. Each Guide also includes breakout boxes on sub-topics dealing with the movie or the business topic being covered. These boxes further empower the reader to mine the book for nuggets of useful information. Breakout boxes include expanded definitions of terms and concepts, checklists of dos and don’ts, examples of how the lesson has played out in real business situations, analytical tools, and anecdotal movie or historical information. Three or more breakout boxes accompany each movie. Each box ranges in length from 200 to 800 words.

How This Experience-Based Program Came to Be

The program is based on the creators’ own experience in using movies to train employees, particularly new managers. Several years ago, author and program co-creator Shaun O’L. Higgins began routinely recommending movies to managers as a fast-track method of broadening their expertise. Usually these managers had come from liberal-arts backgrounds and required a deeper understanding of the business world. Higgins would suggest that the manager rent a movie and view it at home. Sometimes he would rent the movie himself and send it home with the manager, accompanied by a package of microwave popcorn. Once the movie was viewed, Higgins and the manager would discuss the issues raised by the film and clarify the differences between real business and reel business. In addition to direct applications, Higgins has used movie references in many of his popular presentations to advertising, marketing and media audiences around the globe.

In addition to self-study and individual options, moviesforbusiness.com can provides referrals to help you find companies that can clear rights and permissions that enable non-theatrical group viewing for whole movies or key clips from movies. For more information, contact us as info@moviesforbusiness.com. We also can also provide trainers and speakers for your next management retreat, industry conference or sales meeting. (You can get a quotation for our presentations using the link on our home page. Of simply send a note requesting a public-appearances quote to info@moviesforbusiness.com. We think you’ll find our programs affordable, informative and entertaining).

Who Benefits from the Program?

The primary audience consists of managers who like movies and movie buffs who happen to be managers. There are hundreds of thousands of these people. Each year more than 750 million movie tickets are sold and more than 1.5 billion videos are rented for home viewing. According to the U.S. Census, there are more than 18 million managers, administrators and supervisors in the United States alone.

The secondary audience for our program is corporate trainers. Movieforbusiness.com provides new and adaptable tools for training employees in an off-hours, at-home setting.

A third audience exists among movie fans who are more interested in the program’s film criticism aspects than its use as a training guide. In fact, Movies for Business ™is currently one of the few sources for critiques of movies that approaches them leadership and business movies as a film genre.

Movies for Business™ is particularly aimed at new managers who have had limited exposure to B-school training. Corporate trainers find this group particularly hard to reach with mundane corporate training films.

Don’t Take Our Word for IT…See for Yourself!

We’re so certain that you’ll find Movies for Business™ a worthwhile training program, that we offer your first lesson for FREE – with no obligation to purchase anything from us in the future. Just download our Leadership Guide on The Wizard of Oz -perhaps the best leadership-training film of all time.

The Wizard of Oz is one of four movies examined in our book, Movies for Leaders: Management Lessons from Four All-Time Great Films, now in its third printing and available in paperback format for only $14.95 (plus S&H). We also offer the book, Movies for Business: Big-Screen Lessons in Corporate Vision, Entrepreneurship, Logistics and Ethics for only $13.95 (plus S&H). All guides are accessible individually on this site. Books are available online from our online store.

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